This Retro Franchise's Return Was My Favorite Game Of Summer Game Fest Play Days

Hello, and welcome back to Remastered! I had an absolutely amazing time in Los Angeles for Summer Game Fest this year! I saw lots of great games, including the one I’m writing about today. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on Onimusha: Way of the Sword!

Onimusha: Way Of the Sword Is Poised To Continue Capcom's Hot Streak

I’ve waxed poetic a lot about Capcom already in this newsletter, but the Japanese developer and publisher is truly on a roll right now. Someone (not me) even directly told the producer of Resident Evil: Veronica that the company was on a generational run during a group Q&A for that game I attended. While Resident Evil is the backbone of Capcom’s modern renaissance, it’s the other games that appeal more to me.

Earlier this year, the game that did so was Pragmata, which felt old-school by being innovative. Later this year, I’m confident that Onimusha: Way of the Sword will continue that trend while reviving a retro franchise that people have wanted to come back to for years. I played around 45 minutes of Onimusha: Way of the Sword at Summer Game Fest Play Days and watched even more footage at a behind-closed-doors theater presentation.

It was the best thing I saw and played at the event this year. While the older Onimusha games are very much of their time, they did a great job at making you feel like a badass samurai in a world that’s out to get you. Onimusha: Way of the Sword does much of the same, albeit with modern-feeling third-person combat that feels somewhere between Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Devil May Cry. 

Looking back at contemporary interviews for Onimusha: Warlords’ development, Capcom very much wanted to make a quintessentially Japanese version of Resident Evil. It’d swap the guns and contemporary American setting of Resident Evil for katanas and a Sengoku Japanese setting, but would still feature fixed camera angles and action. I’d say it succeeded in that, but took things a step further with really intentional action.

I’ve played the first two Onimusha games through their current-generation remasters that launched ahead of Way of the Sword. Through doing so, I’ve come to respect the slow-paced yet rewarding combat they feature. While you constantly feel weak in retro Resident Evil, if you learn how to properly position yourself, deflect attacks, and use magical weapons, you can easily take down most enemies that the game throws at you. 

Of course, those games do feel somewhat restrictive due to their fixed camera angles and (now-optional) tank controls. Onimusha: Way of the Sword does not have to worry about any of that, and it can also take full advantage of all of the strides the action game genre has taken in the past 25 years. You’re still deflecting, parrying, and attacking with swords and magical weapons, it’s all just even more fun now.

When taking on Genma, I found that it’s best to almost always best to be black, or at least have one finger hovering over the block button. This way, you can easily deflect or parry any incoming attack. Once I did that, I consistently drained enemies’ stamina and could take them down with satisfying slashes that actually make you feel like you're digging a blade into an enemy and not just whacking a damage sponge.

Due to the control scheme, general aesthetics of the world, and emphasis on parrying, part of me wanted to play Onimusha: Way of the Sword like a Soulslike. The game is unequivocally not one, though, and rewards aggressively attacking enemies whenever you can. It successfully fulfills the badass samurai fantasy that the originals did, but in a way that feels a whole lot more in line with contemporary action games. 

If you played the free demo Capcom released for Onimusha: Way of the Sword last week, you probably already know that, though. I saw different parts of it at Summer Game Fest, though, which proved that this is a more open-ended game with some interesting narrative beats that take advantage of its corrupted Sengoku Japan setting.

In the behind-closed-doors presentation, I saw a Capcom developer fight through a late-game mission in which he fought his way through a Kabuki theater. There’s actually going to be some traversal mechanics in the game that let you wall-run. Seeing high-level play from a game developer made me confident that I had only scratched the surface of what was possible with this game’s mechanics. 

Despite that, I still felt like I got a lot out of the 45-minute demo I played, which took place at the Yasui Konpiragu Shrine. It had been taken over by a Genma who put the town’s residents in a trance so he could trick them into giving him different limbs. For example, he took a woman’s eyes away so she wouldn’t think about how other people look better than her, or a man’s whole leg so he no longer had knee pain.

Traveling around Japan to rid it of the Genma threat, Miyamoto Musashi purifies the temple at the whims of the talking gauntlet he wields. To do this, I had to gather statues connected to the god Yorimasa before facing off with the freaky Genma creature masquerading as a god at the temple. This was a much tougher fight than the others I did beforehand, but the fundamentals of combat remained the same.

I’m proud to say I beat the boss without dying, even though I was playing on a harder difficulty. That indicated to me that Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a game that truly rewards patience and properly taking advantage of the parry and deflection mechanics. In that way, it’s not too different from the retro games that inspired it.

Still, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is built to be a modern AAA game. It’s got open-ended levels with multiple sidequests, underlying RPG systems, and a high level of production value. I’m confident that this will be one of the best games of the year after seeing it at Summer Game Fest. I’m glad that’s the case for an honor that goes to the revival of a retro franchise.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword launches for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch 2 on September 25.

What's Old Is News

For this newsletter, I’m going to round up the retro-related games that appeared in the four major showcases (State of Play, Summer Game Fest, Xbox Games Showcase, and Nintendo Direct). I know there were many more shows, so I’ll round those up in future Summer Game Fest-related newsletters:

• State of Play:
  • Saber Interactive is bringing back the Stuntman franchise with Stuntman: Hollywood, an arcade-racing game that has access to real Hollywood franchises like Back to the Future.
  • Remake Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis got a February 17, 2027 release date. A Nintendo Switch 2 port was later confirmed (as was the use of generative AI in development, unfortunately).
  • Rayman Legends: Retold is a remake of the classic 2D platformer that transforms its UbiArt visuals into a new 3D style. It’s out on October 1 alongside a less extensive remaster of Rayman Origins.
  • This is the show where Onimusha got its release date!
  • A prequel to Dave the Diver, Bancho the Chef, was revealed.
  • Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve and Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition both confirmed an October 1 release date.
  • Gitaroo Man, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, and Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams will all come to PS Plus Premium’s classic catalog over the next few months.
• Summer Game Fest:
  • Final Fantasy VII Revelation, the final part of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy, was revealed and given a spring 2027 release window. 
• Capcom confirmed it is remaking Resident Evil - Code: Veronica, although it’s now simply titled Resident Evil: Veronica. You can check out my Summer Game Fest preview of the remake on MMORPG.com
• The Wolf Among Us is getting a remaster later this year ahead of The Wolf Among Us 2’s launch in 2027.
• The antagonist of the original Mafia game will appear in Mafia: The Old Country DLC launching on August 14.
• The next Virtua Fighter game is officially titled Virtua Fighter Crossroads, and it will feature a dedicated story mode when it launches in 2027.
• Fumito Ueda, the developer behind some legendary games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, showed a lot more of his new game in an amazing new trailer. We now know that it’ll be titled Gen Atlas, too.
• Mighty Cuphead is an 8-bit Gunstar Heroes-like take on Cuphead that’s now in development.

• Xbox Games Showcase:
  • Halo: Combat Evolved, a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, is out on July 23.
  • Gears of War: E-Day got an October 6 release date while Fable’s reboot got a February 23, 2027 one. 
  • Persona 4: Revival is out on February 18, 2027, remaking the PS2 version of the fourth Persona game.
  • Sega will revive the Crazy Taxi IP next year with Crazy Taxi: World Tour. Unfortunately, Sega did use generative AI in the game’s development.
  • Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is out on October 15.
  • The long-rumored return of Spyro is happening next Spring via Toys for Bob’s Spyro: A Realm Beyond.
• Nintendo Direct:
  • The rumors of a remake for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are true. We didn’t see much of it, but the remake will launch on Nintendo Switch 2 before the end of 2026.
  • One Piece: Grand Gourmet is a restaurant management game with One Piece characters and retro-inspired visuals that is coming out on October 23.
  • Deltarune: Chapter 5 will be released on June 24
  • Nintendo Switch Online is holding some limited-time challenges in retro Donkey Kong games (and Donkey Kong Bananza). Hopefully, this is a test run for an achievement-like system for Nintendo Switch Online’s classics catalog.
  • Competitive multiplayer Vampire Survivors spin-off Jujutsu Kaisen Rumble: Survivaton was announced.
  • All three Xenoblade games are getting Nintendo Switch 2 Editions, with a fourth one, titled Xenoblade: Genesis, announced for 2027.
  • Wii Sports Resort is getting a spiritual successor in the form of October 22’s Nintendo Switch Sports Resort.
  • The Star Fox remake is getting a free demo you can play ahead of its launch on June 25. Knockout City’s Velan Studios was also confirmed to be its developer. 
  • Final Fantasy is getting a game in the HD-2D art style. It’s titled Final Fantasy Resonance, and is actually a console remake of sorts for the mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. 
  • Muramasa: Remnant Blades remasters Vanillaware’s cult-classic 2009 Wii game for modern platforms. It launches next Spring.
  • Every Kingdom Hearts game will come to Nintendo Switch on October 8.
  • Tales of Eternia Remastered was announced and launches on October 16.

That’s all for this week’s Remastered. There’s still a lot left from Summer Game Fest for me to write about, so I have a lot of fodder for newsletters over the next couple of weeks. Expect another one tomorrow morning based on one of the games I mentioned in the showcase news roundup. Subscribe for free so you don't miss it!